And then there was this .........

Weekend is over and its mid week already. I am having a pretty chilled out week. Spent the weekend meeting two of my friends Anita and Aqua and we had a ball, getting drunk of Madhu's cocktails and food. Bangaloreans, you must try Shiok if you have not already. It boasts of a great cocktail and mocktail menu along with food to die for.. at least if you like Chinese to put it mildly... Shiok is owned and managed by Madhu and he is doing a great job of it. Saturday lunch was spent with him listening to his stories or lets say opinions ... at the end of the whole chat.. all I remembered was " logical fallacies" and "confirmation bias" and "snopes.com".... I was too high on the food and the drinks... to even go deeper than that... Anyways, after having promised to get some great alcohol we left very much the three contented cats... promising to meet the next morning for YUVA. Anita very nicely provided for 5 tickets and we invited whom we could besides the three of us.. Aqua was glad to join us and Pravin, one of our biker friends also joined us... Watched the F1 grand Prix in I bar with Fausters offer of two beers and snacks for 150/- heheh ( was a good offer.. ) and was time well spent watching the Trulli smashing it.. Schumacher might have had some serious miscalculations... Its good to see young uns coming up.. I am rooting for you Button... And Monacoalways yields interesting races because there is very little space to manouvre yourself out of the line...and go ahead...... YUVA a story with a difference... Believe me after Main Hoon Na... this was a welcome break.. That morning i had read some not so nice reviews about this movie and was aprehensive but people when you see reviews like this in the papers... specially on Mani Ratnam please ignore it to bliss... and go and watch it yourself... Impressions.... 1. You might either love the movie or plainly hate it.. there are no middle paths here. 2. Story is good and very realistic... in fact I have myself experienced to a certain degree what they had shown in the movie.... 3. The conglomeration of the three characters and their stories is so fine that you will not realise it unless you watch it keenly. Its very well done and thats the exact thing what I was talking about missing two storylines for Main Hoon Na... I guess the difference is Mani Ratnam. 4. Female leads are good... subtle and pretty but throws in a good punch.. very Indian... and one can relate to it very well.. 5. Cinematography is amazing as usual... the backdrop being the Howrah Bridge and The Presidency College... and nothing has been tainted ... and gives a really natural feel. 6. Music.... Hmmm could have been better but I guess Mr Ratnam was not aspiring for exceptionalismm when it came to music... its just another Rahman melody which is getting pretty monotonous.... They had a disco number thrown in after the popularity of Kal Ho na Ho's Its the time to Disco but fell flat.. 7. Kareena fans will not be disappointed.. she looks presentable.. Rani looks and acts earthy.. an extension of her Hey Ram role, I guess which was easy to don. Abhishek is scary... haha !! He has done a good job but Ajay has fared better... Vivek Oberoi and Easha are characters whom you might be able to ignore or just tolerate just for the story... I saw many new faces in the supporting role which was pretty refreshing... OM Puri is the best in the casting group. I think only a Bengali can appreciate how well he could imitate the character. Hahahaha he had me in riots.... he was too good... You have to see him to believe it .... I thought he was funny in Bollywood Calling but this is even better. 8. Dialogues... were pretty witty and humorous..the story proceeds fast and smoothly and you dont have time to think which is pretty rare for a Hindi movie... 9. The last fight scene is amazing... this is one of the rare movies which has portrayed the whole event in such a fashion... it beats anything that you have seen... 10. As a whole... its a good movie... and if you liked Company, Satya, Shool , you will like this but the theme and the handling of the movie is different... PS: Maybe I am all gaga about this since I am one of those who actually went through or had friends who went through similar events and its nice to see someone try and make a movie out of this without corrupting the main base line... this is the real world and its not all hunky dory... out there ... Same was repeated in Assam's political history and it gave me a wierd sense of deja-vu when I was watching this.. reminded me so much of my college days.... Well I am trying not to divulge the story and before I say too much... please go and watch it... PSPPSPSS: reading Ghost Rider's review, I agree with him about the last scene... ************************************************************************** TRIPPING ON TRIPS And now I pack my bags and get ready to go to Kannore and Calicut this weekend !! Yeaaaaaa !!! This will be our monsoon trips..... seems that it is raining cats and dogs in Kannore and this should be fun.... Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeee so one more long post and photos coming up next week !!!! ************************************************************************** Trying to change my templates... sigh its taking a long time....